#ShareHandmadeKindness Week 4 - Strangers (And a Visit With Alex)

Remember Alex from Costco?

If not - you can read about his story and the kind things you all did for him here.

Since this is week four of the Share Handmade Kindess campaign Jennifer McGuire has running, and the focus this week is being kind to strangers, I had an idea.

I thought I would go up to Costco and tell Alex welcome back and ask him to do something for me.

He was so excited to see me and after we got all the hugging done, he told me he treasures that box of cards you all sent him. He described them as "works of art." I'm sure they were. You are amazing humans. He said to be in such a social job, and then go home to sit and watch awful daytime TV with no one to talk to is not really anything he'd wish on anyone, and so you brightened those days - thank you so much. He's getting around great.

I went into the store and bought small Costco gift cards, and put them into the cards I got from Jennifer at the beginning of the campaign (she handmade those, by the way - beautiful hand-foiled cards with great messages). I asked Alex as he was greeting people today to find a few who looked like they could use a fun surprise for their shopping trip. Most people  are hurrying trying to get things done for their Thanksgiving meals (I saw lots of carts with turkeys in them), and Thanksgiving isn't an inexpensive meal, really - so I thought a gift card from a stranger might be a fun outcome of Jennifer's challenge this week.

He was thrilled to do it, and we sealed up the envelopes and he stuck them in his pocket for the fun day ahead. After a selfie, of course. 

This week's challenge really speaks to me for a lot of reasons. I have a little sign I painted with my favorite verse on it.

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. ~Hebrews 13:2*

The ability to do something kind for someone who doesn't know who you are multiplies the magic, I think. The random act of kindness in a drive through, for example. The Art Abandonment Project is a great example of this too - and many times people come to the group to post that they've found a piece of art just at a very low moment in their lives, and that it made a difference. Think how that must feel!

As a person who has rescued every sort of bedraggled feral animal possible all her life, I believe that being kind to people or animals who have no ability to thank you is one of the most rewarding ways to make a change in the world.

So please do something for a stranger this week. Do whatever it is you can do to make the circle of light around you a little bigger. There may be a shadow that needs you. :)

Today, I'm using them to wish some strangers a happy Thanksgiving.

I used Brusho on a full sheet of Fabriano hot press watercolor paper and then cut it down. Then I die cut leaves from white panels with the Leaflets Framelits and put a card together. Here are the fronts and the backs, which I stamped with the Hero Arts A Bit of Kindness stamp (25% of the profit from the sale of these stamps is donated to the Kind Campaign) :

And here is one on a car - I put them out in the parking lot of the place I get my hair cut since I had an appointment today. I like putting them on the driver window because I don't always notice things people leave under my windshield wipers :).

Loveyameanitbye.

*PS - I knew I had this verse on my blog somewhere so I did a search while composing this post. Oddly enough it was three years ago to the day as I'm writing this. The spirit of Thanksgiving past.